Red Bull driver Sebastian Vettel has gone quickest in free practice at his home grand prix. Vettel’s fastest time of 1m30.416s in FP2 is nearly a second and a half quicker than the best time from Friday free practice two years ago (1m31.894s) when the Nurburgring last hosted the German Grand Prix.

Both free practice sessions were held in dry weather – for the first time since Monaco in May. This allowed the teams to thoroughly test the new Aramid (known as Kevlar) construction rear tyres that will be used this weekend (and were also used in free practice for the Canadian Grand Prix). Ambient temperature was 20 degrees centigrade in FP2, with track temperature of 28 degrees centigrade.

The drivers used both sessions to assess the new construction of rear tyre, where an Aramid belt replaces the previous steel belt. The front tyres remain unaltered. In the morning, the teams used the medium compound only, before trying the soft compound for the first time in the afternoon. The work done consisted of trying out both compounds on different fuel loads, to judge the effect of car weight and track temperature on lap times. This information is useful to formulate strategy both for qualifying and the race. At the end of FP2, the teams as usual concentrated on long runs as part of their race simulation.

In FP1, Lewis Hamilton was quickest with a time of 1m31.754s on the medium tyre.

Pirelli’s motorsport director Paul Hembery said: “The drivers got the chance to assess both the compounds today with the new construction. It was a successful session and most teams got plenty of work done, which puts them in a strong position going into qualifying and the race. We’ve seen quite high levels of degradation from the soft compound but it is a very quick tyre and it should be the selected qualifying tyre tomorrow with the main race tyre being the medium tyre. The performance gap between the two compounds is around 1.5s and we are expecting now with what we have seen two pit stops in Sunday’s race.”

Fastest tyre of the day:

FP1:

FP2:

1.Hamilton

1.31.754

Medium Used

1.Vettel

1.30.416

Soft New

2.Rosberg

1.31.973

Medium Used

2.Rosberg

1.30.651

Soft New

3.Webber

1.32.789

Medium Used

3.Webber

1.30.683

Soft New

Tyre statistics of the day:

Soft

Medium

Intermediate

Wet

kms driven *

1,523

4,956

N/A

N/A

sets used overall **

22

44

N/A

N/A

highest number of laps **

21

31

N/A

N/A

* The above number gives the total amount of kilometres driven in FP1 and FP2 today, all drivers combined.** Per compound, all drivers combined.

May the Force be with you:

Max. g-force braking (longitudinal force):

-4,66 @ T13

Max. g-force cornering (lateral force):

4.3 @T5

Pirelli fact of the day:

Pirelli won its first major circuit race nearly 100 years ago today. Georges Boillot won the Grand Prix de France in a 5.6-litre Peugeot on 12 July 1913 using Pirelli tyres, at the Amiens circuit in Picardy. Jules Goux was second in another Pirelli-equipped Peugeot.